…you know, it’s nothing. Those things that are more mundane. These things that I cannot WIN absolutely. …that I’m not so good at. that others could do with minimal effort and even more minimal care.

…these things that, at one stellar moment, I captured and, in turn, was. And these things that, in a naive thinking of immunity, I thought that I could never be. …but am to this day.

I’m sorry.

I’m really sorry. I thought that I would go there.

These things need to be said. Voiced. That’s what Americans do. They speak. And I’m the most blue-class working artistic American…

and, again, I apologize that I even quote this, but:

from the most capitalistic american novelist that seems to have this need to work and work and work…

(and I’m, maybe 11, at best when I first read):

“The most important things are the hardest things to say. They are the things you get ashamed of, because words diminish them — words shrink things that seemed limitless when they were in your head to no more than living size when they’re brought out. But it’s more than that, isn’t it? The most important things lie too close to wherever your secret heart is buried, like landmarks to a treasure your enemies would love to steal away. And you may make revelations that cost you dearly only to have people look at you in a funny way, not understaning what you’ve said at all, or why you thought it was so important that you almost cried while you were saying it. That’s the worst, I think. When the secret stays locked within not for want of a teller but for want of an understanding ear.”